


We'll Always Have Verdun

by Boton



Category: Mr. Selfridge (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Marriage, Shell Shock, War Aftermath, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2016-08-17
Packaged: 2018-08-09 10:27:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7798264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boton/pseuds/Boton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Henri and Agnes left Selfridge's to return to Henri's beachside hometown, it was in the hopes that Henri could leave the horrors of Verdun behind. But not all scars are visible, and those that aren't are sometimes the hardest to heal.</p>
<p>Disclaimer:  Mr. Selfridge is produced by ITV Studios and is the property of its creators. This work is for my pleasure and that of my readers; I am not profiting from the intellectual property of the owners and creators.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We'll Always Have Verdun

The rain pattered quietly on the roof of the small beach cottage, rousing Agnes gently from a deep sleep. She threw her arm out onto Henri’s side of the bed, expecting to encounter her husband, but her fingertips barely brushed against a hip, causing him to jerk and stiffen at her touch.

“Henri?” she asked, pushing herself to a sitting position and finding him sitting on the side of the bed, rocking slightly from side to side, his head cradled in his hands. “Is it another nightmare?”

“No, no, Agnes. My head. You shouldn’t,” he brokenly began to explain. “You should go back to sleep. I’m going to go get some air.”

She watched as he levered himself to his feet and steered himself around the small bedroom, holding onto the posts of the bed as he passed. The distant lightning illuminated the room with its flashes, making Henri’s shadowy form look like it jerked and lurched. At least, that’s what Agnes told herself as she warily lay back down, listening to the sound of the screen door open and close.

She counted her own heartbeat for as long as she could stand, aching to follow him outside but reluctant to treat him as injured. They had rowed about it before, Henri yelling that he hadn’t come home with a wound, that he didn’t want nor deserve to be treated like those veterans who needed help because of a missing limb or lost sight. He didn’t want her pity.

But he did need her help, she thought. After an appropriate interval had passed, she got up from the bed and padded out to the covered porch, night dress skimming the boards and toes gripping the wind- and sand-smoothed surface.  


She found Henri sitting on the lower step of the three that led down to the dirt in front of the house. The rain had been coming down for some time, and Henri was crouched above a small puddle, running his fingers through the water and the mud, mesmerized.

“Henri?” she asked again. He looked up, his eyes haunted. He stood, feet and hands covered with mud, working it into his palms and between his fingers.

“There was so much blood,” he whispered. “We sat in the mud all day, and all night, and it wasn’t always from the rain,” he said softly. “Their blood. It was their blood too, and the mud was so red, and it was everywhere,” he continued, still working the mud into his palms. 

Suddenly, he grabbed Agnes by the biceps, smearing mud on her nightdress and nearly knocking her off her feet. She grabbed him in return, trying to ground him, trying to give him something real. The lightning flashed and the thunder cracked in the distance and Henri jumped and quivered at each sound, leading them round and round in a dance in the accumulating mud.

“I can’t save them, Agnes,” he said, his voice breaking. “I can’t save any of them. They’re my men, and I promised them they’d come home, and I can’t make it true.”

With that, Henri broke, leaning his head onto Agnes’s shoulder, weeping. 

Agnes guided Henri back into the house and sat him on the edge of the bed. She gathered a washcloth and a basin of water and began to gently wash the mud from his hands and feet, then silently stripped his pajamas from his body, helping him into a fresh pair, the soiled ones discarded in the corner to care for tomorrow. She quickly did the same for herself, cleaning herself and finding an unsoiled nightdress while Henri stared blankly ahead, occasionally jumping at a crack of thunder or muttering under his breath about memories she wasn’t sure she wanted to understand.

Soon, she returned to him, taking him by the shoulders and guiding him down onto the pillow, helping him lift his legs back onto the bed and under the covers, trying not to stare too much at the lost, helpless look in his eyes. She extracted her hands from his grip that had trapped them, and she went to her bureau drawer and withdrew the small bottle the doctor had given her.

The doctor had cautioned her not to offer too much medicine or too often; to do so was to risk helping Henri with one kind of war wound and causing him to deal with another. But looking at him, lying quaking in the bed, rubbing his head as if he would never be free of pain again, she took pity.

“Here,” she said, offering the medicine and a following drink of water from the glass by the bed. “This will make your head better and help you sleep. It will all feel better in the morning.”

Henri followed her instructions without question, closing his eyes and soon drifting off to sleep. Agnes watched for a while, then retreated to the porch to gaze out toward the beach and listen to the rain. She wondered if they could ever get far enough from Verdun to leave it behind them.

**Author's Note:**

> In my opinion, WWI ranks as probably the most psychologically destructive war in modern history. Between the incredible loss of life and the emotional damage it wrought, the generation that survived it became known as the "Lost Generation." Now, a century from the five years of fighting, we owe it to ourselves and to them to remind ourselves what conflict like this can do.
> 
> A note for those who wish to read further about shell shock:
> 
> “Among regular soldiers hysteria - paralysis, blindness, deafness, contracture of limbs, mutism and limping were the most common, while officers mainly experienced nightmares, insomnia, heart palpitations, dizziness, depression and disorientation.”
> 
> http://spartacus-educational.com/FWWmental.htm


End file.
